Re: Risk vs. Payoff (was Re: Alcor on KRON)

From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Mon May 07 2001 - 19:28:35 MDT


Max M wrote:
>
> If using your money for signing up for Cryonics gives you a lower overall
> chance of surviving indefinately than using them for general healthcare or
> other things to improve your longivity

I intuitively doubt this, unless you're sufficiently povertystricken that
the marginal value of a few extra bucks of disposable income is very
large. Suppose, conservatively, that cryonics has a 10% chance of being
successful, factoring in the probability that you will die in a way that
precludes being frozen. (Any statistics on the number of cryo folks who
die in a way that precludes successful preservation?) Suppose also that
the chance of your dying in a trucking accident or whatever is 0.2%/year,
at least until you reach age 60 or whenever the chance starts going up.
Then you'd need to purchase a 0.02%/year better chance of survival, i.e. a
10% decrease in your total chance of mortality, with your $50/month or
whatever your life insurance costs, before it was worth trading in your
cryo bracelet for.

-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence



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